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Last year, President Obama toured a federal prison in Oklahoma - an unprecedented move for a sitting president and a clear sign of the administration's focus on criminal justice reform. Among its proposed reforms is a call to "ban the box" – which would move or remove questions about a job applicant's criminal history. Today, should the box also be banned from college applications?

Then, hip hop has been key to the runaway success of Hamilton...suddenly people are rapping about American history. Now, an educator and lyricist is applying that formula to the classroom.

For those of us who have been around a few election cycles, this year stands out from the others—outsiders favored over career politicians, new campaign finance rules and super PACs, an unwieldy candidate line up. But for first time voters—18 year olds—it’s all new. NHPR’s Natasha Haverty visited a civics class at Kennett High School in Conway, to hear from some of them.

As laptops, iPads, and smartphones become commonplace in kids’ lives at home and school, parents are increasingly uneasy about where to set limits, or even what counts as 'screen time.' We’ll talk about that, and then also another conundrum of the digital age: whether taking time to teach kids handwriting and cursive in school still has value.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently stated that a later start time could improve the sleeping patterns and grades of middle and high school students. On today’s show: what sleeping in could do for budding minds.

Then, we’ll sleep in a bit longer to take a look at lucid dreaming, the phenomenon of being aware that you’re in a dream, even while asleep.

Plus: from La Boheme to the musical Rent, ”the starving artist” has been romanticized in popular culture. We strip away the rose-colored glasses to make the case for paying artists.

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44:47

8.27.14: The Case For Later School Start Times & Why Artists Should Get Paid

The new president of Dartmouth College says progress is being made on two pressing campus safety issues: high-risk drinking and sexual assault. Philip Hanlon, who was inaugurated in September, told faculty members this week that the number of students treated for extreme intoxication --blood alcohol content above .25 percent--dropped from 80 in 2011 to 31 last year. Just five were treated this fall, compared to 29 in the fall of 2010.

On September 15th, 2008, the financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11. The subprime mortgage crisis had been percolating for months by then, as had a global economic decline – but the bankruptcy of the nation’s fourth largest investment bank panicked Wall Street, evaporating liquidity markets, sending the economy sharply downward, and sparking the worst global recession since World War II – a crisis from which the world’s economy is still recovering.

On September 15th, 2008, the financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11. The subprime mortgage crisis had been percolating for months by then, as had a global economic decline – but the bankruptcy of the nation’s fourth largest investment bank panicked Wall Street, evaporating liquidity markets, sending the economy sharply downward, and sparking the worst global recession since World War II – a crisis from which the world’s economy is still recovering.

As part of NHPR’s station-wide series “How We Work: Five Years Later,” Word of Mouth presents “The Class of 2008,” conversations with people who graduated from high school or college around the time of the global economic meltdown.

On September 15th, 2008, the financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11. The subprime mortgage crisis had been percolating for months by then, as had a global economic decline – but the bankruptcy of the nation’s fourth largest investment bank panicked Wall Street, evaporating liquidity markets, sending the economy sharply downward, and sparking the worst global recession since World War II – a crisis from which the world’s economy is still recovering.

On September 15th, 2008, the financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11. The subprime mortgage crisis had been percolating for months by then, as had a global economic decline – but the bankruptcy of the nation’s fourth largest investment bank panicked Wall Street, evaporating liquidity markets, sending the economy sharply downward, and sparking the worst global recession since World War II – a crisis from which the world’s economy is still recovering.

As part of NHPR’s station-wide series “How We Work: Five Years Later,” Word of Mouth presents “The Class of 2008,” conversations with people who graduated from high school or college around the time of the global economic meltdown.

If recent revelations about the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs have you worried about the future of American privacy, it might do you good to think back to when you were still in high school… and nearly all of your activities were monitored by another powerful domestic agency: your parents.

Since then, technology has made surveilling students remotely, easier than ever before...Including a new program called “Power-School”, which offers parents around-the-clock online access to their children’s grades and academic progress. Jessica Lahey is a New Hampshire parent and educator, and author of the forthcoming book Why Parents Need To Let Their Children Fail. She recently wrote for The Atlantic about why her family is choosing not to use the system to monitor their fourteen-year old son.

The New Hampshire attorney general's office says the state and two advocacy groups have failed to reach a settlement in a case challenging a new law that blocks out-of-state students from voting unless they establish legal residency in the state.

A superior court judge set a deadline of Friday for the state and the New Hampshire chapters of the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union to reach a compromise.

Assistant Attorney General Richard Head says settling constitutional challenges is no easy task. He says the office will await the court's ruling.

CHARLES WHEELAN, professor at Dartmouth College and the University of Chicago and is author of 10 ½ Things No Commencement Speaker Has Ever Said and Naked Economics, veered off the motivational script when addressing the 2011 class at Dartmouth, telling the graduates “your worst days lie ahead.”